Faith

The Invisible Things

by Jesse L. Smith
09/12/17
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"And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.". Paul, 1 Cor. 1:17

 In a dream I rode in a convertible along a quaint countryside road. It was a simple, but beautiful place to be driving. Little did I realize that God was a passenger with me in the car. He spoke to me as if parodizing human perspectives of Himself saying, "People think of Me as the Invisible Man...". At that moment I saw a pair of Groucho Marx glasses hovering in the air in the car, as if to illustrate the ridiculousness of the point. "And yet", he continued, "I make all This...". And then, as if the very fabric of space and time were plucked, a distortion of the very substance of our reality was plucked in the same way you would grab and then release a sheet on a bed. His point was clear: the very substance of our reality was enough to declare Himself as if personally looking Him in the face. That the very material world would have no substance without Him present and holding it all together.

 Scripture tells us that, "..the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made..." -Romans 1:20 At first I sort of laughed at the dream, amused at the funny symbolism used to represent human perspectives of God. But really, how far is that from the truth? When most of us think of God, not only do we think of Him as an invisible being irrelevant to our everyday reality, but we also personify Him in the most foolish way. A cosmic comic, even a fool. We make a mockery of Him, and attach His name to every casual slur.

 And yet, as we are driving on the road of our lives, quaint, but undeniably filled with beauty, we neglect to think about the fearfully and wonderfully made hands turning the wheel. The very miracle of perception itself, to hear, feel, smell, taste and see. To even be conscious of that information, consider and enjoy it. That there is air to breath, that there is a road to drive on, that there is a backdrop to that road as picturesque as a painting, yet you can go there. In a virtual world we would marvel at that kind of amazing capability, and praise the designers of the hardware and software. In our world however, most of us just keep driving along.

 Who really is the fool after all? It's a kind of sickness that plagues us. Almost as if we were plugged into our virtual reality world at birth, marveled at its achievement and filled with wonder for the first few years of our lives, only to forget it was a virtual world at all. That it was designed, and crafted in the most intricate details. When we forgot that truth, we forgot ourselves, as if our spiritual bodies withered on the other side with only a deceived mind active in what we thought was the only reality.

 The apostle Paul spoke of this saying, "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools..." Romans 1:21-22. This strongly implies that the knowledge of God is not discovered, but lost. That we are born into this world already possessing a native understanding of God, but tend to lose it along the way. Recent studies have suggested that this may indeed be true, but that faith can be expunged with sufficient mental discipline. It would seem that Paul would agree with them, but he certainly wouldn't call them "wise".

 Just like any good video game, an experience with the game is an experience with the team who designed it. Their aesthetics, preferences, and world view are all embedded in the games code. We can't say that we know them personally from their art, but we can get a good window into who they are. Based on that understanding we can make predictions and identify their unique signatures in other work. Of course, we could never do that if we refused to believe those games were designed at all.